Most coming of age stories focus on those small, memorable blips of the character’s childhood: the first kiss, that one time at camp, etc. We, the viewers, share similar moments. Although they’re boxed away in the attic of our mind, these stories allow us to revisit them and relive the “good ol’ days”. Mid90s is Jonah Hill’s semi-autobiographical coming of age story about the days that were not-so-good.
Mid90s focuses on a 13-year-old named Stevie who lives with his young, single mother and his bullying older brother. Just like the average teenage little brother, Stevie is impressionable. He spends hours in his brother’s room sifting through classic hip-hop albums and examining posters on the wall. Eventually he roams out on his own and gets involved with a ragtag team of skaters.
Since Stevie is at that age where he’s distancing himself from his mother’s wing and feels victimized by this brother, he naturally becomes interested in skating and the culture. For better or worse, he takes it all in. Skating is fairly harmless these days but in the 90s, it was viewed as an act of rebellion. The best places to skate took measures to ensure kids didn’t skate there (although these rules were broken anyway). Skate gatherings carried the usual party favors of hookups, drinking, and drugs.
Aside from that, the movie really has no plot. Everything above is pretty much all you need to know about this movie. Yet, it still works. Mid90s is a free verse story that values emotion over plot. The playlist of 90s hip-hop songs hits you right in those brain receptors that make you think “I remember where I was when I first heard this song”. (if you’re anything like me, you was somewhere you didn’t need to be doing something you didn’t need to be doing.) Stevie’s coming of age didn’t come from summer camp or any other traditionally fond memory. Instead, it was forged from the need to fill a void in his young life. His friends were all broken youth in some way. While adult Stevie will remember his mom embarrassing him and his brother beating him up, he’ll also remember the common bond he forged with his friends through skating and the journey it took them on.
Jonah Hill’s star power has always been evident, but I never knew he would be the “serious actor”. He’s slowly been backing away from the Apatow factory to step into roles that require more range. He was still the comedic relief in The Wolf of Wall Street but this role required more method acting than his usually funny, chubby-guy bit. His most recent role, in Netflix’s Maniac, proves that Jonah is seriously committed to his craft. Each episode is a mini-movie that essentially has him playing a different role. Prior to that, Jonah hadn’t attempted anything as daring in his career. Then, he decided to get on the other side of the camera to direct mid90s, pulling in independent powerhouse A24 as well as Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross to handle the score. This movie officially made me soften my stance on the critical darling of 2017. Spoiler alert: I didn’t just like it, I loved it.
But it did make me think…If I liked this movie, why did I hate Lady Bird? It also featured a somewhat comedic actress in her directorial debut. Like Jonah and Apatow, Greta Gerwig was also breaking away from the mumblecore. Mumblecore is a term of endearment applied to any stylized independent movie with improvised dialogue. The term was coined by fans but it’s publicly dismissed by the major players of the subgenre such as Joe Swanberg, The Duplass Brothers, and, of course, Greta Gerwig. Lady Bird was Greta taking what she learned from mumblecore but applying it to her personal style. Lady Bird and Mid90s both feature young, problematic main characters. Yet for some reason, I found Lady Bird to be too aimless. It didn’t allow the “coming-of-age” label to be an excuse for Lady Bird’s behavior because I thought she didn’t feel like anyone I knew. Like Mid90s, the film favored emotion over plot. Both projects are incredibly ambitious and have their faults, but Lady Bird was less relatable to me. I didn’t connect with the characters so no emotions were evoked. I guess it’s because the early 2000s wasn’t my era. I fondly remember the mid-90s. In the end, I connected with this movie for the same reasons people connected with Lady Bird, because we could see a small bit of ourselves in the main character. While my brother was away, I would sneak into his room to listen to his CDs. His eclectic collection ranged from Wu-Tang to Green Day (Dookie. Back when Green Day was good). Stevie searching for an identity through the music of the era and extreme sports mirrors my own experiences. I faulted Lady Bird for not being relatable, but now I see that story wasn’t for me.
Mid90s will get knocked for being too aimless or its usage of cringe-worthy, problematic slang, but that’s what makes it golden. Jonah Hill’s masterpiece is a scrapbook of those times we laugh about now. It’s about those mistakes that we made as kids that forced us to mature. It’s a story about finding good times in-between the bad times. A story that awakens that reckless kid in us all. For that, Mid90s is easily one of my favorite movies of the year.
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